I have registered names for my customers, telling them "you better get it before
someone else does"...some did not take me seriously saying "this isn't the year 2000
yet" (Back in 1998).I knew there were other companies around the globe that could
use that name. The only protection that their trademark offered was in the use of
a logo, there are indeed several other companies with the same name operating out
there today legally.
Anyone should be allowed to register a name and do whatever
they want with it as long as they are not trying to represent an existing company,
and logos are the means of identifying one from the other!
ICANN...stick with the
basic trademark issues, the ones that were handed down at registration time. Trademarks
and Domain Names are two different animals, if a company wishes to retain a domain
name, let them pay for it..period.
A series of numbers and or letters in a url
is NOT a trademark and never will be. Because you own a trademark does not give the
right to own any and all domain names with your trademarked name in them.
Does
the Ford Motor Company have the right to own *ford*.com, where the asterics represent
other words? I think NOT, they don't even have the right to own ford.com unless they
got there first or paid later.
If someone starts a site and uses the Ford Logo
then they have a case, period, otherwise forget it.
I say get out of trademark
business altogether!
Thank you for your time.